William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer
Night’s Dream” focuses on the theme of true love and its many obstacles. The
fairy Puck represents these obstacles as he is the cause of many of the lover’s
problems as they enter the forest. Puck’s actions interfere and cause nothing
but trouble for the four lovers, thus perfectly exemplifying the things that
make Shakespeare’s theme of “.. The course of true love never did run smooth..”
completely accurate.
The first of Puck’s meddling causes
unnecessary grief and forces the plot into motion as he causes Lysander to fall
out of love with Hermia and in love with Helena. Attempting to correct Puck’s
mistake, Oberon applies the flower onto Demetrius’ eyes. However this only
causes more confusion because Demetrius sees Helena and as he declares his love
for her, Lysander challenges him. Hermia finally catches up to the quarrelling
boys and is devastated by Lysander’s brutal reaction to her. All the while
Helena is hurt that they would all go to such lengths to, what she believes to
be, playing tricks on her. The entirety of this confusion is all caused by Puck’s
one mistake which set off a domino effect on all the lovers’ lives.
Despite this insane discord, the
four are brought back to how they should be as Puck lures them away from one
another and cures Lysander of the flower. Though Puck began all this, he also
puts their lives back together under Oberon’s orders. Though there were
complications that seemed impossibly cruel for all four of the lovers, their
true loves returned. So although Puck was the cause of the conflicts he was also
the resolution. The entirety of Puck’s actions demonstrated that anything could
happen in the pursuit of love but if it is truly true love then the conflicts
will resolve themselves.
